US Election 2024: Harris and Trump set sights on Pennsylvania in final push before Election Day

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump closed out this year’s presidential race with a fierce battle for Pennsylvania on Monday, making their final pitch to voters across a state that could prove decisive in the campaign for the White House.

Harris ended her night in Philadelphia at the art museum steps made famous in the movie “Rocky,” where she said “the momentum is on our side.” She also rallied with supporters in Allentown, Scranton and Pittsburgh, and she swung through Reading to visit a Puerto Rican restaurant and do a little canvassing herself, knocking on doors alongside campaign volunteers.

“It’s the day before the election and I just wanted to come by and say I hope to earn your vote,” Harris told one woman, who said she had already cast a ballot for the Democratic nominee.

Trump started the day in North Carolina and finished it in Michigan, but he spoke in Reading and Pittsburgh in between. The former president delivered stemwinders at each stop, blending false claims about voter fraud with warnings about migrants committing crimes and promises to revitalise the United States.

“With your vote tomorrow, we can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America, and indeed the whole world, to new heights of glory,” he said.

While Harris focused on optimism about the future and never mentioned Trump by name, the Republican nominee excoriated his opponent at every turn. His running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, followed Trump’s lead during his own rally in Atlanta, telling the crowd that “we are going to take out the trash in Washington, DC, and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.”

The last day of campaigning was an appropriately frenetic ending to a presidential race that has defied expectations at every turn.

Trump was convicted during a felony trial involving hush money payments and survived two assassination attempts. He remains under indictment for trying to overturn the last presidential election, which he lost to Joe Biden.

Harris became Democrats’ replacement candidate this summer when Biden was pushed off the ticket and forced to abandon his reelection bid after stumbling badly in his debate with Trump.

One of the few constants in the campaign has been how close it’s remained. The election is expected to be decided by razor-thin margins, and the results may not be known for days.

Pennsylvania has the most Electoral College votes of any battleground state, making it the top prize of the campaign. A victory there would clear a path to White House for either candidate.

“You are going to make the difference in this election,” Harris said in Allentown.

About 30 miles away in Reading, Trump told supporters that “if we win Pennsylvania, we win the whole ball of wax.”

In Pittsburgh, Trump delivered what his campaign aides described as his closing argument after his previous attempt — a mass rally at Madison Square Garden in New York -- was derailed by crude and racist jokes. He has also veered into invocations of violence and said he “shouldn’t have left” the White House after he was voted out.

“Over the past four years, Americans have suffered one catastrophic failure, betrayal and humiliation after another,” Trump said. He added that “we do not have to settle for weakness, incompetence, decline, and decay.”

The crowd exploded in cheers when Trump said the country should tell Harris, “You’re fired,” his catchphrase from “The Apprentice,” the reality television show that made him a nationally recognised star.

Harris arrived in Pittsburgh while Trump’s rally was underway. By the time she finished her succinct remarks, he was still talking.

“We must finish strong,” Harris said. “Make no mistake, we will win.”

The day was further evidence of the ripple effects from Trump’s Madison Square Garden event, where the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” Southeastern Pennsylvania, which was visited by both candidates on Monday, is home to thousands of Latinos, including a sizable Puerto Rican population.

“It was absurd,” said German Vega, a Dominican American who lives in Reading and became a US citizen in 2015. “It bothered so many people — even many Republicans. It wasn’t right, and I feel that Trump should have apologised to Latinos.”

But Emilio Feliciano, 43, waited outside Reading’s Santander Arena for a chance to take a photo of Trump’s motorcade. He dismissed the comments about Puerto Rico despite his family being Puerto Rican, saying he cares about the economy and that’s why he will vote for Trump.

“Is the border going to be safe? Are you going to keep crime down? That’s what I care about,” he said.

While in Reading, Harris visited Old San Juan Cafe with New York Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who has Puerto Rican heritage.

Supporters chanted “Sí se puede” and “Kamala” as the vice president’s motorcade pulled up. Once inside, Harris chatted with some diners, even mixing in “gracias” and a few Spanish words. The vice president later ordered cassava, yellow rice and pork, saying, “I’m very hungry” as she noted that she’s been too busy campaigning to find time for many meals.

“I stand here proud of my long-standing commitment to Puerto Rico and her people,” she told her crowd in Allentown. Harris promised to be “a president for all Americans.”

Trump, meanwhile, stuck to talking about his proposed crackdown on immigration while speaking in Reading. He called to the stage Patty Morin, the mother of 37-year-old Rachel Morin, who was found dead a day after she went missing during a trip to go hiking. Officials say the suspect in her death, Victor Antonio Martinez Hernandez, entered the US illegally after allegedly killing a woman in his home country of El Salvador.

About 77 million Americans have voted early. A victory by either side would be unprecedented.

Trump winning would make him the first incoming president to have been indicted and convicted of a felony. He would gain the power to end other federal investigations pending against him. Trump would also become only the second president in history to win nonconsecutive White House terms, after Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.

Harris is vying to become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office — four years after she broke the same barriers in national office by becoming Biden’s second in command.

Heading into Monday, Harris has mostly stopped mentioning Trump by name, calling him instead “the other guy.” She is promising to solve problems and seek consensus.

Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a call with reporters that not saying Trump’s name was deliberate because voters “want to see in their leader an optimistic, hopeful, patriotic vision for the future.”

On her final day of campaigning, Harris took a rare trip down memory lane by talking about being a longshot candidate for San Francisco district attorney in 2003, her first elected office.

“I’d walk to the front of the grocery store, outside, and I would stand up my ironing board because, you see, an ironing board makes a really great standing desk,” the vice president said, recalling how she would tape her posters to the outside of the board, fill the top with flyers and “require people to talk to me as they walked in and out.”

Trump seemed nostalgic as well.

“It’s sad because we’ve been doing this for nine years,” he said in Pittsburgh after inviting members of his family to join him on stage.

He held his final rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he also concluded his campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

“I have one left,” he said beforehand. “And remember the rallies are the most exciting thing. There’ll never be rallies like this. This is never going to happen again.”’